PLACENTIA – Students returned to classes at El Dorado High School on Tuesday, with many consumed by shock and sadness following the suicide of a popular teacher.A team of grief counselors arrived on campus to help distraught students and staff cope with the death of photography teacher Jillian Jacobson, who police say hanged he

PLACENTIA – It was unusual for Room 902 to be locked once school started.Then again, it was Monday morning and rain was sputtering around a dark, cloudy Orange County.So the first students to arrive for Jillian Jacobson’s photography class at El Dorado High School, around 8:30 a.m., asked another teacher to un

A man who murdered his ex-girlfriend's father and sister and nearly killed her mother has been sentenced to death for one of the most brutal slayings in the county's history.
Iftekhar Murtaza received the death penalty Tuesday, seven years after the burned bodies of Jayprakash and Karishma Dhanak were found abandoned in Irvine and

Federal agents searched more than a dozen homes Tuesday in a crackdown on so-called maternity tourism operators who arrange for pregnant Chinese women to give birth in the U.S., where their babies automatically become American citizens.The crackdown on three alleged maternity tourism rings may be the biggest yet by federal homeland s

A John Wayne Airport executive suffered a medical condition that stopped the Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting today, but he quickly returned to work.
Supervisors were debating a controversial proposal to allow ride services like Uber and Lyft to operate at the airport when Larry Serafini, the airport’s acting airpo

SEAL BEACH – Two years after the Ruby’s Diner at the end of the Seal Beach Pier closed, a plan to bring in a local restaurant has taken a dive.The city of Seal Beach and The Original Fish Company, which the city chose last year to open a new restaurant at the pier, have ended negotiations, city officials said. Mayor Eller

An Orange County Superior Court jury today convicted Sam Lopez of first-degree murder in the 1994 death of his girlfriend Cathy Torrez in Placentia.
The jury deliberated for about two days before handing down the guilty verdict in the courtroom of Judge David A. Hoffer.
Torrez was stabbed dozens of times and was shoved into the t

LAGUNA HILLS – Two firefighters were injured Monday morning in a blaze that significantly damaged two houses, including a home daycare center where children had to be evacuated.Firefighters responded to a home in the 22600 block of Napoli, where flames had erupted around 11:30 a.m., fire officials said.When firefigh

WASHINGTON – Bitterly admitting defeat, House Republicans on Tuesday abandoned their attempts to use the Homeland Security Department’s spending bill to force concessions from President Barack Obama on immigration, and sent him legislation to fund the agency through the end of the budget year with no strings attached.&ldq

FULLERTON – If you can’t find it, just follow your nose.
The amorphophallus titanum – also known as the corpse flower or stinky flower because of the hideous odor emitted when in full bloom – is on display at the Fullerton Arboretum.
Staffers say the smell is akin to rotting flesh.
The plant bloome

Orange County drivers, excited about cheap gasoline just a few weeks ago, are suddenly feeling the pinch as prices reverse course, rising 43 cents a gallon in the past week and more than $1 in the past month.Consumers are not happy about it.At a Chevron on North Grand Avenue in Santa Ana, drivers sounded off Monday about

The most frightening, anxiety-choked experiences of my adolescence didn’t involve standardized testing, battling acne or finding a place to sit in the lunchroom.It involved reading aloud.A lot of courageous Orange County schoolchildren are doing exactly that this week, participating in Read Across America events tim

A man was shot and killed during an altercation early Monday morning in Santa Ana that left four other men injured, police said.Santa Ana officers responded to reports of gunshots around 12:45 a.m. at El Zocalo Mexican Grill & Seafood, 301 N. Tustin Ave.Investigators suspect a fight broke out inside the restaurant nea

PLACENTIA – A 31-year-old teacher died after she apparently hanged herself and was found by several students Monday morning inside an El Dorado High School classroom.Jillian Jacobson, a photography teacher from Anaheim, was found by several students after another teacher opened her locked classroom around 8:40

A bill that could block toll lanes on the I-405 has been introduced in the state Assembly, and its author is hoping for better fortune than a similar bill that was rejected before reaching the Assembly floor.At issue is the widening of the freeway from the 73 toll road to the I-605. The Orange County Transportation Authority plans a